


and somewhere in her mind it's always raining.

by Azure (orphan_account)



Category: Reign (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Horror, F/M, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-13
Updated: 2013-12-13
Packaged: 2018-01-04 12:51:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1081230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/Azure
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mary blinked, straightened her shoulders and marched ahead. Voices, and laughter, and hooded hooves rose above the crackling of the bonfires. She stroked her eyes with the back of her hand. She couldn’t stand there like a chastised child. Stirling’s low barks reached her and dragged her towards the woods.</p><p>A branch, white as bone, snapped under her feet as she dived past the trees.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and somewhere in her mind it's always raining.

**Author's Note:**

> Probable OOCness. If so, please let me know, because I really want to improve my writing.
> 
> Hope you will like the story!

“Stirling, come back! Stirling!”

Mary’s fingers twitched as she wanted to raise her hand, and that could, perhaps, stop her dog. Stirling just dropped belly to the ground and squirmed past the foliage. She just wanted to help. Her hands closed into fists. He turned into such a moody, arrogant, ungrateful arse.

Perhaps he though that he could hide in her old rooms and shut doors in her face as she was a servant. Well, he was wrong.

Mary blinked, straightened her shoulders and marched ahead. Voices, and laughter, and hooded hooves rose above the crackling of the bonfires. She stroked her eyes with the back of her hand. She couldn’t stand there like a chastised child. Stirling’s low barks reached her and dragged her towards the woods.

A branch, white as bone, snapped under her feet as she dived past the trees. Mary glanced back towards the castle. Sunlight flared red. She shielded her eyes with one hand and breathed. The almost-taste of floating dust coated her tongue and lips.

There were a couple of hours before dark.

“Stirling!”

Mary circled around a oak. She put a foot on a warped root, pressed her palm against its bark and let the trees’ shade swallow her. A sickly sweet smell of rot and grass clung to the air and to her throat.

_I dare you Mary, I dare you to go in and bring something back!_

Mary jerked her head to the side, almost looking back, as if the child Francis had been stood behind her. He had been eight, half a head taller than her at the time of that game. They never got close to the woods. The nanny grabbed them and hauled them to their lessons, white as milk. Francis sulked through his letters that day.

She brought thumb and forefinger together and stroke them free of resin and dirt.

He did never stand behind her, though. Always ran ahead.

A faint humming sound rose from somewhere near the ground.

Stirling’s whine, pitched high, jolted her out from her reverie. It came from the depths of the woods. A weight sunk in her stomach and her shoulder went taut. If her dog got caught in a trap, or hurt- She flinched. Once, a hunting dog that broke his leg in a huntsman’s trap. He licked the stable master’s hand and nudged it for petting. That’s when the stable master forced his head back and cut his throat.

Mary gathered her gowns, tied them loosely around the knees and followed the sound. When she found her dog, she was short of breath.

Stirling dodged a rock mottled with moss twice his size, to reach the top of a mound in a drunken gallop, tongue lolling out of his mouth. Then he went back and retraced his steps again. And again.

Mary crouched at a few steps from him and put a hand on the ground for balance. Stirling’s ears twitched. He bent on his forelegs, tail straight up, and stared into her eyes.

His lips curled back from bloodless gray gums and he growled. A string of saliva hung from his teeth.

“Stirling, calm down.” Mary straightened and took a step back. Her heel hit a stone. “It’s only me.” One step after another, her back made contact with a tree trunk.

Her dog froze. He only did that when he disappeared into some hole to be back with a rabbit crushed under his teeth. He turned around, tail tucked between his legs, and sprinted off again beyond the mound.

Mary darted after him. She skipped over roots knotted so long ago they joined and landed into the blueberry bushes. Their thorns gripped her skin, left long, thin gashes on her legs as her gowns got caught in them. She yanked away and pushed her foot forward. Gauze ripped, and—— her foot slipped sideways, on a stone, and her ankle bent under her own weight. She heard something snap. It made the very same sound as the twigs she crushed. Pain exploded.

Blood pressed in and the hum throbbed in her ears.

The ground sped up towards her. Her arms shot in front of her face, and the impact . She rolled through the nettle and blueberry bushes, felt their thorns pierced her arms and crashed against a tree trunk. Her head jerked to the side and hit the ground.

Her heartbeat thundered, blood rushed in a low steady buzz. She couldn’t even hear herself breath.

Mary laid down, cheek pressed into mud. She closed her eyes, reached out to the protruding roots of a willow and couldn’t grip. Her fingers closed onto air. She opened her eyes and pawed at it. The world spun around her and again, and she missed it. Like in dreams, what she tried to touch slipped further from her hands.

The humming rose steady and invaded her skull.

No one knew where she was. By nightfall someone was bound to notice her missing, though. She crawled closer to the willow’s roots, reached out and lowered her arm. Her wrist touched wet moss and she gripped the roots. Balanced her weight on her elbow and arms, she pushed herself to her knees and let her fingertips skim over the bark until they met the trunk. She leaned on it and dragged herself upright.

She had to go back, to where people were.

Mary stumbled a few steps and pain flared up through her legs. Liquid acidity burst in her mouth and dripped as she fell on her elbows. Water splashed all around, and she retched. An acrid smell filled her nostrils as water submerged her hands and arms. She might be a cripple. God save her. If her ankle was broken. She retched again and closed her eyes. One breath, two…

Some time later, her eyes opened again. A wave of nausea came upon her. Thank God it wasn’t strong enough to be sick and her stomach was empty. The pain was reduced to a dull pulse.

She rolled on her side, and latched onto a rock, pushed up and got her torso onto firm ground. Her arms were covered with grime. She bit her lip when cuts and bruises rubbed into sand and leaves.

As she raised on her fours, her soaked sleeves and gowns weighted on her. Even her hair were heavy on her scalp. Her head lolled down.

If at least the rush of blood stopped being so loud- Mary gripped a handful of soil with white knuckles.

Blood was not roaring into her ears.

That humming sound was coming from outside, from around her. It was vibrating down to her teeth and bones.

It had been there all this time. She stilled.

 

 

And the woods crashed on Mary, engulfed her. Above her a moon a little more than a quarter, that didn’t allowed to distinguish nothing more than serrated column-like silhouettes.

She panted, holding a hand over her neck. Crawled around on her knees until she slammed her hands against a tree trunk, raised herself up and stumbled on her feet. She grips tight a piece of bark, to anchor herself as everything steadied.

Only minutes later, she staggered into a clearing and let herself drop down as she shivered. Her very own fingers trembled and her forehead burned. A drop splashed on her hair. And another one.

To catch rain meant to catch her death. She touched the wet spot with her fingertips and brought it to her nose. She flinched. Something swung above and it dripped again, onto her cheek.

This drop slided on her lips and she licked them, by instinct, rolled it around in her mouth.

A sweet-salty taste burst on her tongue. It was still warm.

She will not scream. She will not. Mary arched her back in a shudder and gagged. Rope. He was hanged. Tied to a rope. To a tree. She hopped to the tree in the middle of the clearing. The knot was at waist level, she yanked. And yanked. Her palm bruised.

There were not stones big or sharp enough to cut it.

“You’ve been blessed.” A youthful voice whispered from somewhere behind her. A man voice. His feet shuffled on dead leaves. Mary glanced back. Something moved on the corner of her eyes.

“He let you very close.” He stilled and exhaled. “And you know not what that means, do you?” A branch snapped with a crunch.

“I know that this man- he’s _dead_.” Mary’s ankle throbbed, she pressed her shoulder against the oak to relieve her weight from it. “You killed him.” She tilted her chin up, tears hot on her face.

“He’s a sacrifice. We did him honor.” Her vision swam out of focus. Trees knelt and bounced back.

“He was someone.” A tear fell. She dried them with the back of the hand. They are gonna kill her too. “Please.” They’re gonna tie a rope around her foot and hang her like— “My mother, my people—” they need her back.

“Do not be afraid. You’ve been given a gift so many have yearned for.”

“I never did wrong to your people. Please.” She pressed her forehead against bark, almost as it could give warmth. She can’t marry a King if she’s dead.

The man snorted and took a step towards her. Her nape prickled. “If He wished for your death, you would be already.”

“Then what do you want? You want something, don’t you? You wouldn’t showed yourself otherwise.”

“We always grant passage for a price.

 _Deep the roots_  
 _Dark the night_  
 _Red the blood I will pay_ ” He spoke slowly, clearly, foreign words. Mary repeated them. Her skin tingled with dread. They felt familiar- something flashed behind her eyelids.

“Will you pay it?” Her back went taut. How could she forget that he was there?

“I can’t accept a bargain blind.”

“Your life for another one. These are the terms. His hunger is great.”

“I can’t— I have no power at Court.”

“But you do. You only need to choose someone.”

And if she didn’t, she will stay with them. She pressed a hand on her mouth, to not gag, and shivered. “Then I shall.” She needed time.

“You have been spared.” A boy crouched down near her and offered her his hand. “And you owe us one life.” Mary grasped it. He shook his head and held her wrist in his hand, as the other one closed around his dagger.

He cut across her palm and pressed her fingers into a fist to let it trickle on the roots.

“Wear this always.” He threw a necklace at her feet. She closed her hand around its barbed iron pendant.

 

Mary had slided on her knees just outside the ring of white trees and closed her eyes against the assault of the bright daylight. She was tainted. She was gonna- she grasped her own throat. They were gonna burn her at stake.

A horse at gallop. She raised her head with eyes still closed. Its rider slided to the ground with a thump.

“Mary, Mary!” He grasped her shoulders tight and she recoiled. His voice was familiar. “God help us, Mary, where were you? We” He inhaled sharply. “thought the worst. The guards are searching everywhere.”

Mary eyes fluttered open. All objects and colours merged into haze. She reached forward and her fingertips skimmed over his cheek, his hair, as she was blind. A streak of blood and dirt marred his face from cheek to chin.

“Sebastian. Please, I need… I think” She coughed and gripped his clothes “I need to sleep. A cloak.”

“What happened to you?” His thumb and forefinger kept her eye open, and his other hand cupped her cheek briefly “Where else are hurt?” It slided into her hair and prodded gently. Then he took her hand and turned it palm up.

He stilled. “Mary, now I will take you to Nostradamus.” He wrapped his arm around her shoulders “Can you walk?” She nodded. Bash peered at her face.

“But first, you need to listen.” Her head lolled to his shoulders for a little warmth. “Mary. Do not tell him what happened to you in the woods.” He was stared right ahead as they started going to the horse. She limped behind of a step and held to his arm to keep up “Do you understand? It’s very important.”

He turned, and his eyes seared into her skull when she meet them. She blinked. He knows. Is he—

“Tell him nothing.”

Mary licked her lips. “I don’t remember anything, Bash. Were you all very worried?” She let a tear wet the corner of her eyes “I’m so sorry, but my dog” She closed her eyes and exhaled. A glistening red carcass thrown in the stream, its muscles and blue-yellow veins exposed to air was engraved in her mind. A pungent phantom smell of blood burst into her mouth.” I think I lost him.”


End file.
